Earlier this week the candy stars aligned and we received two kinds of Turkish delight from two friends who had each recently been to Turkey. One is originally from there, and one went as a tourist.
It had been a while since I'd had the kind on the left. It has the consistency of gummy bears, and the flavors are only half what you'd expect: the green is mint, the red tastes of roses. The lemon is perfectly balanced between tart and sweet. The orange is like Brach's orange slices that have been working out and taking steroids.
The kind on the right was a such a revelation that I'm not sure Turkish delight is the right name for it. The texture was more like very chewy fudge, the dark one seemed to be made from dates, I could taste spices along the lines of cardamom, and they all had macadamia nuts. And because I am a coconut freak, the coconut coating made me very happy indeed.
In Turkey, the confection is called lokum, a word that may come from lokma in Turkish or luqūm, the Arabic plural of luqma, meaning "morsel" or "mouthful." It also may have been derived from the Ottoman rahat hulkum or Arabic raḥat al-ḥulqum , meaning "contentment of the throat."
That last theory makes the most sense to me -- my throat is definitely content after Turkish delight.
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Hm give me one
ReplyDeletesonu